By Zach Friend, Second District Supervisor
In early February, the Oral Health Access Santa Cruz County Steering Committee — an organization made up of local nonprofit, education, health and elected leaders — hosted the virtual Oral Health Summit 2021. The purpose was to provide a state of local oral health in our community and to recognize those who have been championing oral health for the underserved in our county.
Cynthia Mathews wins the Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of oral health promotion as past Mayor, Santa Cruz City Council member, and current member of the Oral Health Access Steering Committee during which time she has spearheaded water fluoridation efforts and advocacy, led the charge for increased investments to community programs including more access to dental services, and has supported a new dental clinic in the City of Santa Cruz.
The Oral Health Access Steering Committee was founded in 2016 in response to the first oral health needs assessment in Santa Cruz County, which showed significant gaps and need for improving access and outcomes in oral health care in our community. For example, fewer than 1 in 3 patients with Medi-Cal were accessing dental care at the time, even though they had dental insurance through Medi-Cal. The numbers were even lower for young, low-income, children.
As a result, the Committee decided to focus on three key elements:
- Promote a First Tooth First Birthday Campaign: To ensure that the youngest were seeing dentists around their first birthday to set them on a course of oral health moving forward
- Encourage kindergarten oral health screenings
- Expand treatment, prevention and clinical capacity
The results have been very encouraging. Over the last four years, through partnerships with local dental clinics, County Health Services, local hospitals and safety net clinics a robust education campaign has significantly increased visits for 0-2 year-olds.
In fact, Medi-Cal 0-2 year-olds accessing dental care has risen from 16 percent in 2014 to 52 percent in 2018 (the most recent data) an increase of more than 200 percent. There is still room for growth but this increase is the highest in the state and appears due to the concerted outreach efforts.
The second focus was to promote kindergarten oral health screenings. This ensures that children will have a dentist that they will see regularly and continue to build that connection with oral health. The County Office of Education and local school districts worked to include oral health screening forms in enrollment packets and local dental clinics, such as Salute Para La Gente and Dientes, prioritized these preventive visits. As a result, since 2014, Medi-Cal visits for children in this age group increased nearly 80 percent.
Alicia Fernandez: Non-dental professional Teams Award
The third focus was to expand prevention, treatment and clinical capacity. From a prevention standpoint, the Committee worked with local pediatricians and family doctors to apply fluoride varnish to teeth at medical well-child visits for children 0-5. Fluoride varnish is an easy and effective way to significantly decrease dental decay and takes less than 30 seconds to apply. Dientes, Cabrillo and the County worked to train medical providers and staff on the application and ultimately there has been a 200 percent increase in the application of the varnish by medical providers.
To expand treatment and clinical capacity, Salute Para La Gente increased the number of dental hygienists and Dientes added a 3-chair clinic in the Beach Flats as well as added a new chair in the Watsonville clinic last year. As a result, treatments were able to increase. In fact, there has been a 51 percent increase in dental visits and 30 percent increase in dental patients compared to 2014. Moving forward, Dientes plans to expand access further with a new clinic in Live Oak.
Even with these improvements, it’s clear some gaps remain.
David Brody, First 5 Santa Cruz County executive director, and Alicia Fernandez, health outreach and enrollment supervisor, won the Team Award for their synergistic collaboration to promote oral health education to families of young children.
We all have the ability to improve oral health outcomes in our community, especially for the most vulnerable. If you work for an organization that might be interested in incorporating oral health education for employees you can Oral Health Access Santa Cruz County for support (website below).
Education about the importance of oral health, and where services can be provided, is one of the key gaps. Funding is always another gap and attendees at the Summit had asked for ways additional funding could be provided. Possible solutions presented included adding dental benefits to Medicare and continued funding for local oral health programs from the State.
If you’re interested in learning more you can see the 2021 Oral Health Report Card and listen to a recording of the Oral Health Summit at http://oralhealthscc.org/.
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As always, I appreciate any feedback you may have on this (or any other County issue). I’m maintaining regular updates on social media at www.facebook.com/supervisorfriend and during the shelter-in-place order I’m hosting regular tele-townhalls with County and community leaders monthly on the first Tuesday from 6-7 pm. The call in information for the town halls is 454-2222 with the Meeting ID: 145384# – you are welcome to speak about any issue during the town halls or you can always call me at 454-2200.
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TOP PHOTO: Noel Kelsch, Cabrillo College dental hygiene program director, is given the Outstanding Dental Professional Award for passionately promoting oral health care both locally and globally, advocating oral health care for vulnerable populations, and commitment to education and training of future dental professionals.